An Italian coffee trainer has raised concerns over the state of barista proficiency, citing a growing tendency for café staff to learn their trade from short social media videos instead of through professional, hands-on education. According to Giordano Cognigni, a consultant and founder of a training center in Italy, this trend is worsening persistent issues with quality and consistency in coffee service.
Cognigni observed that many baristas and café owners now treat platforms like Instagram and TikTok as a replacement for formal education, viewing brief video clips as a shortcut that saves the time and money required for proper courses. This occurs even as fundamental problems, such as poor equipment hygiene and a lack of basic knowledge, remain common. He noted that the lessons from professional training, when undertaken, are often not retained or implemented in the café environment.
This reliance on superficial content, he argues, ultimately degrades the quality of the final product served to consumers. As a solution, Cognigni has called on the industry, particularly coffee roasters with training academies, to evolve beyond one-off classes. He proposed a model of continuous engagement, suggesting that roasters should conduct regular follow-up visits and monitoring of their wholesale clients to help ensure that best practices are being followed and to uphold a higher standard of quality at the point of sale.